


Ochre Eyes

by Thiinka



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Carlos has been STREXified, Cecil is inconsolable, Cecil is not described in detail, Episode: e032 Yellow Helicopters, M/M, Maybe evil maybe not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thiinka/pseuds/Thiinka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the broadcast ended, Cecil didn't get to the lab in time. Which was, of course, perfectly kept on his shiny new wristwatch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ochre Eyes

"...But, before they left, the witnesses said that some low-flying yellow helicopters began dropping orange leaflets onto the city streets. The leaflets read... StrexCorp Synergists INC. Look around you: Strex. Look inside you: Strex. Go to sleep: Strex. Believe in a smiling god. StrexCorp. It is... _everything_."

Cecil suddenly realized what he'd just said, and his breath caught in his throat in a tiny "oh."

"Oh, no. Uh... Dear listeners, we must issue an apology: those helicopters are completely. _Safe_. Even safer than safe!"

He felt like his mouth was moving on its own; that hadn't happened since the Glow Cloud. But this felt so much more intrusive and wrong; at least the Glow Cloud had been friendly, in her (his? its?) own way. _All hail the Mighty Glow Cloud_.

"In fact, StrexCorp recently _bought_ our little radio station from the mysterious, unseen forces who founded it centuries ago!"

Sweating at his hairline, beads coming down his unnaturally-pulled up cheeks, Cecil laughed nervously. Outside the station window, orange sheets fluttered in the dry desert's moonlight-colored breeze. He could see the abhorrent Desert Bluffs logo on each and every one.

"I'm glad to know that Josie will be ok, and that StrexCorp... has come to Night Vale."

He drew a silent breath and kept spewing the lies coming unbidden from his mouth.

"Rest easy, listeners, knowing that this was all just a simple misunderstanding; but now we _fully_ understand everything that is happening and we are _not_ misunderstanding anything else at all. We are completely... _safe_."

He choked around the word, he wanted to just _yell_ the message of defense he'd given at the beginning of the broadcast. But he _couldn't_. His mouth _wouldn't_ work for him, just for _them_.

"Stay tuned next for the sound of slow, steady dripping, and occasional screams. Good night, Night Vale. **Good night**."

Cecil's fingers had been hovering over the station switch and as soon as the last words left his chapped lips he flicked it off, the "On Air" sign disappearing (as it always did) and the promised segment coming on in place of his Voice. He slumped forward onto the little dry desk and started heaving with dry sobs mixed with vitriolic curses against Desert Bluffs. As he buried his fingers into the inadequate mop on his head, the precious, perfect watch on his wrist glinted in the light shining through the window. He hiccuped and looked at it a moment before the gears in his funny head clicked.

 _Carlos_.

Cecil jumped from his spinny chair, leaving it, well, spinning as he dashed out the door of the booth, jacket haphazardly hanging from his arm. Rounding the corner, he took care to tread lightly past Station Management's door; they didn't sound happy, and it didn't take a scientist to guess why. As he dove into his car and sped off to the unassuming block next to Big Rico's, the leaflets were drifting down from no source in particular now, seeming to be materializing from the dry air. They flapped against the front of his car, blocking his view of the road; the force that ran Desert Bluffs didn't want him to get to the lab where Carlos was no doubt holed up and terrified out of his sensible wits. Cecil swore loudly and turned the windshield wipers on, furiously gunning ahead through the streets. The road was slick with orange and yellow pamphlets now.

 _Be in good spirits for this gorgeous day!_ read one.

 _It will pass. It all passes._  yet another proclaimed, clinging to the windshield until the wiper swept it away.

 _Bring your loved ones inside!_  was printed on one stuck bizzarely to the driver's side mirror.

Cecil clenched his jaw tighter at every sunny logo on every note he saw.

After a fierce battle with the papered roads, he finally screeched to a halt in front of Carlos' little lab. Cecil could only pray that his slipping grasp on Night Vale had kept his boyfriend ( _new_ boyfriend) safe thus far, oh _please_ let him be safe. He trembled as he rapped on the thin door. There was no answer.

"CARLOS! _PLEASE_ , CARLOS, OPEN UP!" He shouted into the wood, banging louder. No reply. He kept yelling and pounding until he noticed that the door was unlocked, jittering loosely on its hinges. Cecil's face immediately contracted into deeper worry as he flung it open to find --

Carlos. Just standing there with the papers practically surrounding him; one of the pamphlets was over a Bunsen burner (the paper wasn't burning like it should), another cut into pieces and on a slide under a microscope (they were slowly wiggling back together, blood strung between them), yet another soaking in a beaker of some substance (why wasn't it soggy?). And Carlos was just there with his back to Cecil, showing his beautiful locks of dark hair cascading over the white lab coat as he busied himself with the practical application of Science. Had he not heard that ruckus Cecil had been making?

"Oh, Carlos, my brave Carlos, are you ok? Did you hear... my broadcast?" His voice pitched up an octave as Cecil stepped further into the room, reaching a tentative hand to the scientist's shoulder. His eyes swept to a shelf in the room; a slightly-glowing radio sat atop it, tuned precisely to the correct frequency. Of course Carlos would have been listening to his boyfriend's broadcasts.

"...Yes. I did." Straightening and shaking the cracks out of his back, he turned around. Carlos' soft chocolate eyes had been replaced by eerie, solid irises of golden-orange hue; he smiled, not unkindly, but not settlingly either. "Cecil, I've been _waiting_ for you." His voice was practically dripping with glazed honey.

Cecil froze, staring into those eyes. This, whatever this was, was _not_ Carlos. The smile too relaxed, the hair even _too_ perfect. And the eyes. The not-Carlos just kept smiling with a smile that wasn't quite right. Cecil had seen a grin like that before, in a picture on a bloodsoaked desk. His face morphed to one of extreme horror.

"W-what did you do with my Carlos?" His voice wasn't anywhere near his Voice anymore, high and frightened. He pulled his hands back quickly from the _thing's_ lab coat. Its fiber was too rough and it scraped his hand horribly.

"Whatever do you mean, _quierdo_?" He laughed melodiously, yet there were patches of stark discord in the notes as he advanced on Cecil. "Everything's _perfectly_ fine, we're going to get along so much better now with StrexCorp around!"

Cecil's body shook violently, his head wagging back and forth intensely. "W-we really n-need to. To. Leave. Now. We can't--"

"Can't stay?" Carlos adopted a rather un-Carlosish pout, his lips puckering. "But everything's just getting more exciting here. And these results!" He waved an airy hand behind him, still not taking those eyes off of Cecil's. "Paper that doesn't burn! Or get wet! This is absolutely incredible and we have StrexCorp to thank for this amazing advance in the field!" Even his speech was more formal than it would have normally been.

"No! They've either done s-something to you, or replaced you!" Cecil's voice trembled, yet he still forced it to come out without the tightness of his throat distorting it.

"What do you _mean_ , Cecil? I'm still your Carlos, your _perfect_ and _wonderful_ scientist." The tone in which he spoke might have been construed as condescending, like he was explaining something to a child.

"N-no... you aren't. You _can't_. He wouldn't just... _stand_ there and _watch_ me suffer over his state of mind!" Cecil frowned. "Is... is there a mirror in here?" He looked about; maybe if he got Carlos to see himself he'd realize the truth.

"Yeah, I've got one right here." Carlos turned about, taking a small hand mirror from off a side table. "I use it to look at things indirectly sometimes, but why do you need it?" He looked inquisitively at Cecil, his twin pools of ochre boring into the radio host's inner being.

Cecil took it from him with shaking hands. He held it up slowly. "Ok... _what_ do you see yourself as?"

Carlos shrugged, a bemused expression on his face. "Species homo sapiens, nationality mostly Hispanic, dark longish hair, square jaw, brilliant orange eyes. Same as I've _always_ been." He smiled, and his teeth were knives in a cruel grin.

Cecil's mother had always told him that his death would include a mirror. Now he knew what she had meant as he slid weakly to the floor, the plastic tumbling from his limp hands. The scientist looked at him questioningly, not kneeling to comfort him.

Cecil looked up, and in that moment, gazing at the eyes of the man who once had loved him, he died.

Not in a literal sense, certainly. He eventually got up, said his bland goodbyes, drifted into his car, and puttered slowly home through the whirlwind of taunting paper. In a daze, he stumbled through the front door and collapsed onto the couch. And as he stared at the glittering, accurate watch on his wrist, the only connection to the outside reality Carlos had owned, that he gifted to _him_ in love... Cecil broke completely and wept. He sobbed rackingly into the cold metal of that precious watch as the night drew on, its staleness broken only by the soft, sad tuts of the Secret Police just next to his open window.

... _ **Curse** Desert Bluffs_... _**Curse** StrexCorp_...

... _Curse it **all**._

**Author's Note:**

> aahhhh... this is pretty much my first proper fic for anything ever; just got bit by the inspiration bug at the end of the episode, i suppose vuv
> 
> tumblr is thiinka.tumblr.com if you want art and blogging about things


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